New Finn world champion in sight as Finn Gold Cup heats up again

The battle for the 2019 Finn Gold Cup has come down to New
Zealand’s Josh Junior and The Netherlands’ Nicholas Heiner. Junior will
take a 16-point lead into Saturday’s medal race to spar off against
Heiner for the gold medal. The other podium places will be decided
between Hungary’s Zsombor Berecz, Brit, Giles Scott and Kiwi, Andy
Maloney.

Each day in Melbourne has thrown different conditions and different
challenges at the fleet of 60 Finn from 23 countries. The final day of
the opening series, brought another change with shifty, northerlies and
extreme high temperatures. The fleet launched after a short postponement
into a 15 to 20 knots of very hot wind. It was cooler than the shore,
which reached 44 degrees, but the heat took its toll on the fleet as two
out of the schedules three races pushed them to physical limits.

It was one of its hottest December days on record, with most of Port
Philip obscured with dust and haze, and the competition was equally
scorching hot with the shifty conditions playing havoc with the
established pecking order this week.

Highlights from Day 5

Nicholas Heiner

Berecz won the first race of the day,
leading the race from start to finish. He battled throughout the first
lap with Britain’s Ed Wright, who dropped back to seventh at the end,
while Australia’s Jake Lilley had his best race of the championship so
far and finished second. Ondrej Teply, from Czech Republic, followed in
third following his best race of the week. Regatta leader, Junior as
well as fellow Kiwi Andy Maloney, put in their highest scores of the
opening series finishing 16th and 21st respectively.

Race 9 also got underway the first time in 13-15 knots with Spain’s Joan
Cardona leading at the first top mark ahead of Australia’s Oliver
Tweddell and Heiner. By the bottom gate Alejandro Muscat, from Spain,
had taken over the lead with Turk, Alican Kaynar, in second and Cardona
back in third. Kaynar built his lead at the final top mark to take out
the race win with Cardona crossing in second ahead of Heiner. Lilley
finished fourth ahead of Muscat in fifth.

The regatta leaders made hard work of the race. Junior rounded the top
mark just outside the top 10 with Scott and Berecz some way back. While
Junior moved up to eighth, Scott couldn’t do better than 17th with
Berecz recovering better to cross 13th.

An attempt was made to start the third and final race, but the wind was
becoming increasingly unstable and had dropped to 8-9 knots with big
wind shifts. After 30 minutes waiting, further racing was abandoned.
Most of the sailors were pretty relieved to come ashore, where ice
lollies and ice baths awaited them.

Zsombor Berecz

After scoring a 16, 8, Junior explained his day, “We
went out there in nearly 40 degree temperatures and ended up with a
very shifty 15 knots that slowly died off during the day. For me it was
pretty tough. I really struggled to find my grove and find the shifts as
the wind wasn’t doing what you’d expect, but I ended up moving further
ahead, so pretty happy with that.”

Did nerves play a part? “I guess, but it’s like any other day. You
go out there and race your best. It was very tricky but I just kept
trying to do what I could do.”

On tomorrow, “I think we are expecting a strong onshore breeze so
that’s going to be a lot of fun. I’ve got a decent gap back to second
and it’s pretty close after that. I think all I have to do is go out and
have a decent race and I should be alright, but we’ll see how it goes.”

Heiner had the second best day of anyone on the water with an 8th and a 2nd.

“It wasn’t too bad out there. It was hot on shore but in between
races I was almost cold. Definitely it was the right sport for the heat.
On the water it was actually pretty nice, especially upwind with the
waves coming over it was quite refreshing so I think we were the lucky
60 that were out sailing today.”

“I had a really good day, pretty consistent at least, so no big
results. So that was good. I was really hoping for a third race but it
is what it is and the medal race is tomorrow and all to play for. I know
Josh will probably match race, but I just need to have a good race
tomorrow and we’ll see.”

If Heiner expects a match race, he should remember that Junior is a New Zealand match racing champion.

The top Australian sailor will be Rio 2016 Olympian, Jake Lilley, who
not only secured his place in the medal race today with a fleet best
score of 2, 4, but also wins the Tokyo 2020 Continental qualifier place
for Australia.

He described the day, “We had a pretty funky northerly wind today
which really heated things up for everyone. I got on alright and
finished with a two and a four so really happy with that in the tricky
conditions.”

“It’s really tricky when it’s blowing off the land here. It’s really
hot and there is a lot of dust in the air and the wind shifting all
over the place and when you get a good feeling and a good vibe for it,
it makes it a bit easier.”

“We’ve got the fires and everything in Australia so there’s a lot of
dust and stuff in the air, the throat is a bit dry and it’s 44 degrees.
It makes it tough but I think that brings out the best in this class.
I’m sure everyone enjoyed it and we all had great racing and you can’t
ask for much more.”

“Going into the medal race tomorrow there’s still plenty to fight
for but I also qualify Australia automatically for the continental spot
so it’s good to get that job done.”

The 2019 Finn Gold Cup concludes Saturday with the final race for
everyone except the top 10 scheduled for 12.00 and the medal race for
the top 10 starting soon afterwards. With a strong onshore wind forecast
it is going to be a great battle and a great show.

But whatever happens, at the end of Saturday the Finn Class will have a new World Champion.

The 2019 Finn Gold Cup is being held at the
Royal Brighton Yacht Club, on Port Philip, in Melbourne, Australia, one
of the host clubs for the 1956 Olympic Games.

It is the fourth time that the state of Victoria has hosted the
prestigious Finn Gold Cup after 1995, 1999 and 2008, which is more than
any other location in the event's 64-year history. It is the start to
Melbourne’s 2020 Summer of Sailing with Port Phillip hosting a series of
Olympic class World Championships over the coming months.

More than 60 sailors from 22 nations will be competing for the famous
Finn Gold Cup over 11 races from Monday 16 to Saturday 21 December.

HOW TO FOLLOW THE 2019 FINN GOLD CUP

VENUE
The 2019 Finn Gold Cup is being hosted by the Royal Brighton Yacht Club in Melbourne, Australia.

VNR
VNR and highlights will be available to download from the Finn Class Googledrive here.https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1MviQ3I80MmJVB8KORA4X-FMGoiaa2qb_
Interviews of sailors in English and home language will be carried out
on demand only and made available for download, subject to schedules and
available time. Please send any requests to Robert Deaves at Robert
(at) finnclass.org